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Rwandan President Declares Election Victory

President Paul Kagame declared victory today in the Rwandan presidential election and will remain in office for another seven years. Partial returns counted on Monday night gave him 94.3 percent of the vote, election officials said.

Mr. Kagame claimed his second term as president before an excited crowd of 25,000 people in the main stadium in Kigali, the capital.

He has held the job since 2001 as part of a transitional government set up after the frenzy of ethnic violence nine years ago in which Hutu extremists killed 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu.

The election had all the trappings of democracy. Beginning at dawn on Monday, voters turned out in huge numbers across this tiny and troubled Central African country, where strife has been as much a part of the landscape as the lush rolling hills. There have been presidential elections in the 40 years since Rwanda's independence from Belgium, but never have voters had a choice at the polls.

There were four names on the ballot this time, although Mr. Kagame, who is Tutsi, worked aggressively behind the scenes to neutralize his rivals, all of whom were from the majority Hutu population. His campaign persuaded Alivera Mukabaramaba, the only woman in the race, to pull out in the 11th hour and endorse Mr. Kagame. Jean-Nipomuschne Nayinzira, who claimed divine intervention in his campaign, posed little challenge. But Faustin Twagiramungu, a former prime minister, was viewed as a threat, and he found his campaign stymied at every turn by government security forces.

Mr. Kagame, 46, was the rebel general who ousted the Hutu government that had stirred the populace to kill in 1994. A tall, quiet man who is said to have a quick temper, he has pushed hard in recent years to wipe out the country's ethnic labels, and he saw his broad backing tonight as a sign that the country was moving in the right direction.

''It's a big democratic step that has been taken by our country,'' Mr. Kagame said outside a secondary school where he voted Monday morning. ''It's a huge stride.''

Others were calling it a baby step.

Observers dispatched at polling places across the country on Monday had few complaints.

Mr. Kagame's government actively quelled any serious opposition in the months leading up to ther vote. Some seen as posing a threat to his hold on power were arrested. Others have disappeared. The leading opposition party was forced to disband.

On the streets of Kigali, not a single opposition poster or T-shirt or leaflet could be found. But there seemed to be photographs of the bespectacled Mr. Kagame everywhere.

On the eve of the vote, Amnesty International denounced the government for instilling a ''climate of fear'' among the population.

Despite Mr. Kagame's disavowal of ethnicity as a part of the national discourse, it was ethnicity that prompted concern among his supporters. Hutu make up 85 percent of the population, and Mr. Kagame's backers feared that despite his accomplishments in office, he would be ousted if voters took ethnic background into consideration.

Throughout the campaign, Mr. Twagiramungu was blasted as a ''divisionist'' by Mr. Kagame for speaking openly of Rwanda's racial divide. Tutsi officials still held most of the crucial positions in government and business, Mr. Twagiramungu would say. Mr. Kagame denounced such talk and suggested that the security that the country currently enjoys would be in danger if Mr. Twagiramungu somehow triumphed.

In a sign of the fear within Mr. Kagame's government, Mr. Twagiramungu found his rallies canceled, his workers arrested and his brochures seized. On Saturday night, the police rounded up a dozen Twagiramungu backers at a bar and charged them with holding an illegal meeting.

Mr. Twagiramungu said he fully expects to be sent to jail, which is what happened in 2002 to Pasteur Bizimungu, who held the presidency before Mr. Kagame. ''We are ready for prison,'' Mr. Twagiramungu said on the eve of the election.

Mr. Kagame said on Monday that the law, not he, would decide whether Mr. Twagiramungu would be jailed. The police commissioner, Frank Mugambage, said Mr. Twagiramungu had clearly violated election law by being ''divisive.''

''What I am guaranteeing,'' he said, ''is that we will ensure that the law will be abided by.''